The History and Painstaking Production of Sriracha Hot Sauce

Sriracha hot sauce has taken the world by storm. David Tran, the inventor of Sriracha sauce, takes us through his colorful past and explains the meticulous process he uses to make the iconic condiment.

Video Summary

After David Tran escaped from Vietnam back in 1978, he made his new home in Hong Kong. Today, his company is named after the boat that took him there, the Huy Fong. After just two years in Hong Kong, Tran started his hot sauce business. In his earliest days, he manually packed Sriracha sauce with a spoon. Tran has basically kept the same recipe, some 35 years later, except that he now uses even spicier peppers to get the taste he loves so much. It’s probably fair to say that Tran is a bit obsessed with that signature spice of his. That’s why he controls the farms they use, so he can control the level of quality they produce. By keeping these farms near to his processing plant, the peppers are only out of the ground for four hours before they are turned into Sriracha.